Just days ago we watched President Obama and Mitt Romney duke it out in what was arguably one of the most exciting presidential debates we’ve seen in a long time. It was a welcome awakening from the seemingly sleep president, and as for America’s favorite Republican, as lively as he was, I don’t think America was able to keep up with the number of lies he continued to spin. One topic that isn’t usually brought up in debates because of its highly controversial nature, is the hotly contested Second Amendment. And if you’re not quite sure what that is, for our Canadian readers, the Second Amendment is the right for an individual to bear arms. Thankfully, this is not a law that Canadians enjoy, and would probably explain why our murder by gun per capita is significantly lower than our gun-slinging neighbors to the south. And while both the Obama and Romney agree that the Second Amendment is a piece of legislature that is worth preserving, perhaps the two might want to rethink their positions on the matter after the tragic events that occurred in a Florida beauty salon today.

A man walked into a hair salon, opened fire on the employees inside, killed three women, and then left to drive down the road to take his own life. A fourth victim, and the sole survivor of the brutal shooting is currently in hospital. The man was later identified as 36-year-old Bradford Baumet. Police have stated that at least one of those women was in fact a customer at the salon, and the other two women were employees. There were two other women in the salon at the time that managed to escape the gunman by slipping out the back door. The victim taken to hospital was Marcia Santiago, and was an employee o the Las Dominicanas M&M hair salon in the Orlando suburb of Casselbury.

Two of the women shot, salon employee Noelia Gonzalez-Brito, 28, of Kissimee, and customer Gladys Cabrera, 52, of Orlando. It is alleged at this point that Noelia Gonzalez-Brito was five months pregnant. The motive for the shooting stems from a legal dispute between Marcia Santiago and Baumet. Santiago had asked him to stay away from her, and went as far as to take out a restraining order against Baumet. He had threatened to kill her in the past, which is why Marcia hadn’t reported it to the police earlier. Santiago was set to see a judge the day after the shooting to seek a permanent injunction for domestic violence so Baumet could never gain access to her. Instead, Baumet shot her and her coworkers in a fit of rage and ended his own misery.

If this isn’t an endorsement to take a good, long hard look at the state of gun legislation in the United States of America, nothing is. On the heels of the Colorado massacre and a plethora of other gun related crimes, there is no better time to make a change in Congress than now. But with that sort of rhetoric absent from both presidential candidates, it appears that American gun laws are safe and sound, at least for another term. And while that may be a relief to the gun-slinging, red-blooded Americans that believe in personal security by way of weaponry, it certainly doesn’t bring justice to those families who have lost loved ones to a politically charged bullet.